While watching the meet on Friday and thinking about it afterwards, my first thoughts were: "Geez, we got our butts handed to us out there; but I think we still ran OK?" It was weird. Times were fast. Places were not great, in the varsity race.
It took Hopkins to put it in perspective best in a text he sent me over the weekend:
"So all things considered, no Girma, Raucci or Vess, this year's team placed 5 spots higher against stiffer competition."
All true. And all makes me feel a lot better about things.
Now look: You can only judge the team that is out there. The reality of the matter is Girma/Raucci are done for xc, and it was our decision not to race Vess. You can "what-if" results till the cows come home (Well, if we had Vess, we would have ... ) but that can sometimes be unproductive and frustrating.
I'm proud of the team we trotted out there. And as Hopkins pointed out, we did a pretty darn good job overall -- much better than last year. And last year's team was pretty good!
Justin Harris, who was there coaching his SUNY New Paltz team, also made a valid point. Our (Marist) style of racing is not very conducive to a track-meet style of meet like Paul Short. At PS, you gotta get out and stay out. If you try to run even-paced or smart pacing, you are stuck way behind. While you can make it up somewhat, on a relatively fast course with no chump runners, you aren't gonna be gobbling up a lot of places over the final 3km.
So, the quick analysis goes like this.
In the varsity race, the following guys ran really well: Curtis, Quimes, Zak, Sam, Duggan. Web had a nice bounce-back race after a little detour with a hip injury. The rest of the varsity guys ran well, solid, decent. Not great. Not awful. Left us yearning for more.
In the JV race, I would say top to bottom everyone ran really well. Some more than others. But in general, extremely strong. I was very, very pumped after this race!
Good heavens. Practically the entire team PRed and I am still picking things apart. I guess that's a good thing.
We have a lot of season to go, fellas, and a lot of goals to hit.
Stay healthy. Stay strong.
Run. Rehydrate. Run some more.
Gold Race (Varsity) results
Conor Shelley 24:47 (personal best)
William Griffin 24:49 (personal best)
Matthew Flint 24:52 (personal best)
Curtis Jensen 25:05 (personal best)
Nick Webster 25:25 (personal best)
Tim Keegan 25:28 (personal best)
Arquimedes DelaCruz 25:29 (personal best)
Zak Smetana 25:57 (personal best)
Sam McMullen 26:17 (personal best)
Patrick Duggan 26:19 (personal best)
Open Race Results
Matt Janczyk 26:00 (personal best)
Sean Nestor 26:18 (personal best)
Billy Posch 26:21 (personal best)
Mike Nicoletti 26:39 (personal best)
Matt Panebianco 26:56 (personal best)
Brian Townsend 27:07
Kyle Havard 27:19 (personal best)
Joel Moss 27:20 (personal best)
Michael Keegan 27:23 (personal best)
Ryan Brown 27:24 (personal best)
Colin Johnson 27:29 (personal best)
Ryan Fitzsimons 27:41 (personal best)
Greg Masto 28:02
Mike Holinko 29:30
Brendan Green 30:55 (personal best)
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